


Shelter

by elisera



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: AU, Career Ending Injuries, Future Fic, Getting Back Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:09:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21768739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisera/pseuds/elisera
Summary: Sometimes Jamie gets bitter about all of it, here, in his cabin in the middle of the woods, with no one but a dog to bear witness. This is not the life he wanted, once. Definitely not what he expected.
Relationships: Jamie Benn/Tyler Seguin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 237





	Shelter

The cold water hits Jamie like a fist to the face and he comes up sputtering, Baxter circling around him and barking his fool head off in excitement at their summer morning ritual. 

Times like these, Jamie is really happy that his anxiety sent him this far away from the general public. There are no neighbors to complain about the ruckus.

Baxter's already out by the time Jamie reaches the dock, the dog intensely sniffing the bushes and trees along the lakeshore. Jamie's everything hurts just looking him bouncing around. A mild thirty minute jog through the woods plus a short swim barely made a dent into the dog's energy level while Jamie wants a nap. 

That's middle age for you. 

He bends over to snag his shirt with his good hand, and his back twinges at him unhappily. Groaning, he straightens up carefully. His back’s potentially planning a rebellion for later in the day, and okay. Maybe just a short nap. No one but Baxter needs to know.

Jamie whistles for Baxter when he reaches the bottom of the stairs leading up to the cabin, and the dog rushes past him with a yip. It escalates into another round of barking when Baxter reaches the top. The sound of it is different, though. Less joie de vivre, and more _there’s a bear up here_.

"Goddamn," Jamie says. His phone is ringing. Taking the steps two at a time, he bursts into the cabin with his heart in his throat. This early in the day, it's either because something bad happened with the kids, or --

"There you are, fucking finally!" Tyler says, and Jamie sags against the counter. Dropping his shirt next to the toaster, he pushes his wet hair back out of his face with a shaking hand. He takes a second to breathe. "I've called three times already," Tyler tags on. He’s never liked Jamie living out here by himself. As if a busted hand and a shitty back meant Jamie was unable to take care of himself. 

"I was out running," Jamie says, trying to force his heart rate back to normal. He presses a hand against his lower back and winces. Baxter presses close, almost sitting on Jamie’s feet and tucking his nose against Jamie’s hip. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it's just Tyler calling this early in the morning. But Jamie's lived through the one percent when it was about Ava or Henry, and he can't help his reaction. 

There's an ominous pause. "We talked about you going out there without your phone," Tyler says. Jamie fiddles with one of Baxter’s ears and chooses not to interpret Tyler’s tone. Tyler calls rarely enough as it is, Jamie doesn't want to fight with him. 

"How are things on your end?" he asks instead. He reaches for a dish towel to blot at his face. "Summer treating you alright?"

Showering will just have to wait, he decides, and takes himself outside onto the porch, Baxter hot on his heels. 

The last he heard, Tyler was somewhere near Kapstadt. Jamie’s roughly twenty years past trying to keep up with Tyler and his summer plans.

"Oh, yeah," Tyler drawls, honey-sweet, and Jamie braces himself for another rendition of Tyler being heart eyes about whichever woman or man has caught his eye this time. 

Jamie dumped his shoes and socks on the porch when he got back from his run, and he kicks at the shoes now, resisting the urge to make them go sailing down into the lake. 

"There's this new restaurant in Toronto,” Tyler goes on, “and the other night me and the guys --"

Jamie's shoulders drop. He doesn't know when it happened, or how, but Tyler turning into a food enthusiast on the level of actually being able to identify a fruit knife (a _what_) was not something he saw coming. Jamie knows he should've gotten over himself a long time ago, but this is definitely more fun to listen to than Tyler going on about a crush. 

He sinks down into a chair, the morning sun warm on his damp skin, and lets Tyler’s voice wash over him. 

…

The conversation segues soon enough into Jamie’s plans for the rest of August and fall. Jamie knows that talking about getting the cabin and himself ready for winter isn’t all that thrilling for Tyler, but Tyler keeps ignoring Jamie’s attempts at redirecting them to talking about Tyler’s schedule once hockey comes back. Which -- Jamie shouldn’t worry about it. It’s not too unusual. Tyler still thrives on living in the moment. Right now, he’s as free and unbound as he ever gets, no work commitments tying him down, and Jamie’s helplessly pleased when Tyler promises to make time for a visit in Victoria for Ava’s seventeenth birthday in September.

Jamie always makes himself leave his self-inflicted isolation behind for the kids’ birthdays and Thanksgiving, a school play or two, but it’s never easy to step back into the hustle and bustle of life lived in an urban area. Tyler knows. And while this particular _thing _of Jamie’s is now more pronounced than it was when they first met, no one’s ever been better at deflecting for Jamie than Tyler. 

After they say their goodbyes, Jamie tries to forget about the slight oddness in Tyler’s behavior by giving himself permission to sleep away a healthy chunk of the morning in the hammock. It doesn’t exactly put him at ease, but it does wonders for his back. 

Anyway, he does his best to focus on something else. Worrying over Tyler has never gotten him anywhere. Checking over his supplies and spare parts to add this and that to his standing order at the general store in Waters End for the trip down next week is a good enough distraction until noon. Especially since he’s still wavering on whether or not to invest in a new storage unit for his solar panels. Since it’s just him up here during winter, he doesn’t exactly need it, but okay, yeah, the vague paranoia he can’t shake really wants him to buy another one. Just in case.

In the afternoon, he skypes his therapist for an hour to give what’s by now a simple status update instead of the only thing keeping him breathing. Still, it’s taxing, so he offsets it with an hour and a half of Henry on facetime. At fourteen, Henry’s not that much into talking to Jamie anymore, but down to play guitar for him to show his progress. And to get Jamie to help him with his math problems. In their family, that’s known as googling the correct way to solve them, and while Jamie sucks at math, he can google. 

By the time evening comes around, he’s sitting outside on the porch couch with Baxter snoring in his lap and a fire crackling in the firepit. He still mulls over Tyler’s selective quiet. Tyler doesn’t owe him answers anymore, if he ever did. Jamie loves the life he’s built himself out here, can’t exactly go back to living the old one, but yeah, okay. Sometimes he really misses the time when Tyler lived just a ten minute walk away. 

...

The next morning, Jamie emerges from his post-lake shower to find Tyler sprawled sideways across his bed, Baxter flopped over at his side with his head resting on Tyler's stomach, the dog's tail thumping wildly in happiness. 

Jamie swallows the dissonance. "No dogs allowed on the bed," he says, giving his wet hair one last past with the towel before lobbing it sloppily at Tyler's head and missing. "Also, no shoes."

"Still so mean," Tyler says, his grin sharp and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes deep, his entire expression screaming of tension and too much caffeine. He keeps his fingers sunk in Baxter's fur but kicks off his sneakers. 

"I hope you brought food," Jamie says. He riffles through his drawer for underwear and drops the towel around his waist.

Tyler must’ve left Waters End way before sunrise to be here already. 

"Of course I did," Tyler says. "I'm not into starving in the Canadian wilderness just because you decided to --"

"It's just a three hour boat ride to town." Jamie gives him a look over his shoulder. Tyler’s gaze is on Jamie, but south of the equator, and Jamie doesn’t let himself grin. Some things apparently never change. 

"_Wilderness_," Tyler emphasizes, dragging his eyes leisurely up to meet Jamie's. "And Waters End barely qualifies as a town."

"You like the coffee at McGeady’s just fine." Jamie steps into his underwear. No reason to draw this out, no matter how good it feels to have Tyler’s eyes on him.

Tyler cranes his neck to follow when Jamie steps over to his closet. "True. Anyway, I brought steaks. And weed. And alcohol. So we're good." 

Jamie smiles at the neat row of his shirts and flannels before pulling a short-sleeved button-down off the hanger. "Priorities, huh?"

"Yep," Tyler says, popping the p like he's still a twenty-something who can get away with things like that and not a professional that, during the season, is on TV for an average of three nights per week. Jamie hears the springs protest, signaling Tyler getting up. "Hey," Tyler says, his hands hot on Jamie's bare flanks. Tyler tugs, and Jamie turns into him. "Hi," Tyler says, leaning up to press their mouths together for a fleeting second. Jamie blinks. 

"I'll get the coffee started," Tyler says, his breath ghosting over Jamie's mouth and making him shiver. "Come on, Baxter, let's go! I've brought treats for you, buddy!"

Jamie watches him go and presses his lips together, licks them to chase Tyler's taste. It's been more than two decades since they decided to take a step back from _this_ to save who they were to each other. Jamie is helpless against the ache in his heart, the hope unfurling deep inside, and Jesus Christ, he's turning fifty in two years, he's too old for butterflies. 

...

Tyler's wired and chatty right up until he crashes hard in the hammock after lunch, his snoring making Jamie smile as he settles down in his chair on the porch to answer his emails. 

The kids are in the second week of the new school year, and Amber's emails are an even split between pure, honest appreciation for the moms she's friends with and sarcasm directed towards certain other parents as well as a good portion of the teachers. It’s entertaining.

They've been parenting long distance like this for more than a decade now, and while leaving has been as hard on Jamie as it was good for him, he doesn't think the adjustment was that difficult for Amber or the kids. Jamie's been mostly absent in their day-to-day lives since the beginning, relying on his then-wife and employees to shoulder the weight while he chased the Cup.

In the end, the injury to his hand and the abrupt retirement that followed coincided with their divorce being granted. Within eighteen months, Jamie went from being a top athlete and a married father to living in a hotel room as an unemployed divorcée with a hand that was more wires and screws than anything else. 

He’d slipped into a deep depression before he knew it, fear and anxiety and the sheer bleakness of his future paralyzing him. He’d barely managed to leave his hotel room to see his doctors and physiotherapist. After the final round of surgeries and physiotherapy, when everyone agreed that this was as good as his hand was ever going to get, whatever hope he’d clung to vanished. Professional hockey was truly forever out of reach for him. With his hope went the last motivation to leave his room.

His personal rock bottom came in the form of his parents calling the police for a welfare check.

Looking around the trashed room, empty alcohol bottles and dirty plates everywhere, he tried to remember when he let house cleaning inside for the last time and coming up blank. Standing in front of the officers, he’d acutely felt just how long it had been since his last shower, and Jamie realized that he had to either get out or he’d fold entirely. 

Amber had been understanding when he packed up and left town. Even relieved. Things were more stable for the kids and her without him imploding on the edges of their lives. 

Tyler took it hard.

He’d tried to keep Jamie involved with the team, even when Jamie refused to talk to any of the boys. He’d dedicated their deep Cup run that year to Jamie in every interview he gave. The season after, they went all the way, and Tyler was still talking about Jamie. As if Jamie had anything to do with their success. As if they didn’t only get there once Jamie was out.

By that time Jamie had finally stopped running and bought his property in the middle of nowhere. Thanks to modern technology, he was busy talking to his therapist via skype three times a week, and also in the middle of building his cabin. He’d felt better, if not yet stable. 

Tyler didn’t bring him the Cup that summer, but he did bring his Cup ring as a gift, and they had a row about all of it. Hockey, and how Jamie had left, and the tent Jamie had been sleeping in for half a year while construction was underway. How Jamie had scared the shit out of Tyler. It ended with Tyler throwing the ring into the lake in anger. 

And here they were now. Tyler peacefully sleeping the afternoon away while Jamie talks to his family. 

Granted, sometimes Jamie gets bitter about all of it, here, in his cabin in the middle of the woods, with no one but a dog to bear witness. This is not the life he wanted, once. Definitely not what he expected. But the bitterness always passes, and he’s come out on the other end alive and content. It’s good enough for him. 

...

"Now that was some good steak," Tyler sighs that evening, leaning back in his chair. He pats his stomach and Jamie notices the slight softness to it with satisfaction because yeah, retirement is finally catching up with Tyler, too. "How's the fishing been this year?" Tyler asks, lolling his head to the side to look at Jamie.

"Good," Jamie says around the last piece of his own steak. He chews and thinks. "We can take the boat out tomorrow morning."

"Sweet," Tyler says. He's toying with his fork, and for all the talking they did today, Tyler’s said nothing about why he's come up. Never mind the kiss. 

"You can tell me, you know," Jamie says. He reaches for the bottle of wine and splits the dregs evenly between their glasses. "It'll be fine. No matter what."

Tyler shakes his head, drains his glass. "Not yet," he says, "I mean, I will? I always end up telling you everything in the end."

He doesn't sound too happy about that.

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," Jamie says. Despite the odds, theirs has become the friendship of a lifetime. Their careers started and ended on different teams, at different times and for different reasons, and their lives are nothing alike. But they've been solid, even after Jamie retired and Tyler kept on playing. Jamie had waited to become a footnote in the story of Tyler's life, to become an anecdote instead of a participant. Only it never happened, both of them in their own ways determined to cling to what they could have of each other. 

"I want to," Tyler insists. "I just need a fucking moment _to be here_ and like, breathe."

"Take all the time you need," Jamie says.

...

"Stop thinking," Tyler murmurs, his breath hot on the back of Jamie's neck. He closes a hand around Jamie's hip, fingers gripping tight. "Sleep."

"Just come here," Jamie says, reaching back for Tyler with his bad hand and pulling him in. "There," he says, bringing Tyler's arm around his waist. "Better."

"Okay," Tyler says. His nose is brushing against the knob of Jamie's spine absently and he tangles his fingers with Jamie’s. Jamie can’t feel it entirely, the nerve damage is too extensive for that, but it still feels nice to have Tyler’s warmth sink into his slightly stiff fingers. 

The cabin's bigger than Jamie needs, the rooms on the second floor collecting dust outside of the few weeks a year the kids visit or the rest of his extended family invades. 

Tyler, because he's Tyler, never claims a room when he visits and they’re here alone. No. He always just crawls into Jamie's bed with him. Always trusting that Jamie won't kick him out. 

Jamie, knowing Tyler the way he does, never tried to turn it into something that Tyler didn't intend it to be. Not even in his own head. Tyler's always been tactile, skin hungry like a bottomless pit, and even when it hurt to have him close without getting to _have _him, Jamie always pulled him closer still. He never figured out how to stop.

After all these years, Jamie's conditioned to this, to them lying together in easy comfort, and he can feel himself settle more firmly into the mattress, the tension bleeding out of him. No matter what it is that Tyler’s carrying around like a weight around his neck, they’ll be okay. Jamie can't bear anything else. 

...

The following Tuesday finds them at McGeady's for Jamie's monthly stock-up trip and to return the boat Tyler rented from them for his trip up to Jamie’s. 

Jamie tethered the canoe to the boat today, mindful of just how much more food he’ll need to feed Tyler in style for a while. Granted, the season starts in two weeks, but Tyler’s been mum about leaving, and Jamie’s not going to ask him. 

Loading the groceries into the boat and the canoe, he keeps an eye on Tyler charming the locals. Tyler has Mrs. and Mr. McGeady's undivided attention while he's idly picking through the range of goods in case something catches his eye. Jamie smiles to himself when Tyler examines an apple. Tyler just doesn't have an off-switch. 

Jamie decides to leave him to it while he wanders over to the post office to pick up whatever paper mail might have found its way there. 

"Will you take the mail for Mr. Seguin, too?" Mr. Brown asks, and Jamie stops. 

"His what?" he asks, startled. In all the times Tyler has visited, all the weeks he's hidden away from the world at Jamie's, he's never gotten a single letter delivered.

Mr. Brown holds up a stack of envelopes. Jamie takes them, sorts through them before he can stop himself. Two of the letters are from Sportsnet. All of them have a forwarding sticker on them. 

...

"Ah," Tyler says when Jamie hands him his mail. "Right. Uh."

Jamie makes himself relax. "Whenever you're ready."

...

"I'm not having a midlife crisis," Tyler says that evening. He's aggressively poking at a log in the fire they built earlier. "I'm not."

"I didn’t say you were," Jamie says, studying the defensive line of his shoulders. Though. Well. Maybe Tyler is. Jamie rests the top of his beer bottle against his mouth. Unlike Jamie, Tyler hit the ground running when he retired. He’s barely stopped since, and until now, Jamie thought that Tyler had the right idea. 

"I quit," Tyler says, cutting Jamie a look.

"Okay," Jamie says. It’s not like either of them is hurting for money. "You'll find another job if Sportsnet isn't the right fit anymore --"

"That's not -- I quit my life." Tyler fumbles for his beer, drains it. Jamie blinks.

"You what?" 

"I rented the condo out. My dogs are at Cassidy's for now, and I just. I needed to get the fuck out."

Jamie stares. "You never said you were unhappy."

Because, Jamie realizes, Tyler is. It's screaming at him through the tension Tyler can't seem to shake entirely, lurking around the too sharp edges of his smiles. 

"I'm forty-fucking-five years old," Tyler says. "If I'm lucky, I have another thirty years --"

"You will," Jamie snaps, suddenly unnerved. Despite Tyler's announcement when he got here, they've yet to light up or drink enough to get more than tipsy. Jamie kinda really wants to go find the weed right now. "You'll have _more_, modern medicine being what it is -- you have the fucking money to --"

Tyler waves his words away. "I don't want to keep going like this!" He shoves himself up onto his feet and stares down at Jamie. "What the fuck am I waiting for, Jamie? What do I have to lose anymore? My ability to fuck off and follow every whim? What use is that if I'm _alone_."

"You're not alone," Jamie says, struggling to find the heart of the issue. Tyler's only alone when he wants to be. He's nothing like Jamie. Jamie, who ran away from the people he loves to live a quiet life, to find a chance to breathe without anyone's expectations weighing him down even when it meant disappointing his children. For Jamie, it was that, or drowning. Dying.

"Lonely, then!" Tyler shouts, the words coming out like they cost him. 

"You don't have to be," Jamie says, getting up on his feet and reaching for Tyler. He digs his fingers into Tyler's shoulders. "You don't."

"What if I want you back," Tyler says, a statement and not a question, and Jamie clutches him tighter.

“Segs, I --”

“Okay! Don’t answer,” Tyler says. His hands wind themselves into Jamie's shirt. “Not straight away. Maybe I’m having a slight midlife crisis.”

“You think?”

Tyler puts his head down on Jamie’s shoulder. “Think about it. Please.”

"I can't lose you," Jamie says. "That's why we -- why we stopped."

That's what it felt like in 2015. Like the only way to keep each other in any capacity was to take a step back and to love each other as friends, without the expectations of a relationship. 

Tyler’s long since stopped hiding who he dates, no matter their gender. As for Jamie, who he dates or fucks isn’t newsworthy anymore. 

These days, they’re out to everyone who matters. 

The only potentially negative consequence of them being a _them _again is -- well. Once upon a time, they were just as fundamentally different as they are now, but also so goddamn fucking intense about each other, that -- it threatened to rip them apart by the seams, and they were incapable of being casual about each other. When both monogamy and an attempt at an open relationship backfired spectacularly, going back to being friends was the only alternative. Back then, they, at the very least, needed to be able to play on the same team. That requirement is gone now. If they fuck up this time, there’s nothing binding them together. Tyler can walk away for good.

Jamie takes a moment to think. He still can’t bear to only love Tyler when he’s in the same fifty kilometer radius as him and ignore what he does when they’re not. And by now, Jamie’s just never going to be as into travelling the world as Tyler is. 

“I can’t lose you,” Jamie repeats. “You know what my head’s like, and I -- sharing won’t work for me.”

“I know.” Tyler takes a step back and Jamie makes himself let go of him. "Do you really think I’m asking you to?" Tyler asks. "After everything? I know you."

Jamie closes his eyes, anxiety clawing at him. “I won’t move back to the city. Any city.”

“Let me stay here, with you,” Tyler says. “Until spring, at least. If I can’t -- if it doesn’t work out, I’ll go again, no sweat. But Jamie, I’ve been missing you since the day I let you go and _please_. There’s only one you.”

Jamie knows that feeling. He opens his eyes and studies Tyler. "You need to promise me."

"We’ll be fine no matter what,” Tyler says. He steps in close, his nose nudging against Jamie’s jaw. “I promise. I don’t want to lose you either."

At that, Jamie lets himself cling for a long moment, then he angles Tyler’s face up with a touch to his chin. “Okay,” he agrees, “we’ll try.”

Tyler’s lips are soft on his, his hands greedy as they clutch at Jamie’s back and oh, fuck it. Jamie’s missed him. He refuses to let him go again. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, my eternal gratitude goes to Pinetreelady for putting up with my shit. You best.


End file.
